


Dear John

by downdeepinside



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Letters, Post Reichenbach, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 21:06:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/904932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downdeepinside/pseuds/downdeepinside
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is terribly poor form of me – not to mention incredibly cliché. I apologise; however it doesn’t seem I have much choice."</p><p>Because, really, Sherlock isn't a machine. And, really, he can't leave John like that. (Post Reichenbach/kind of just before the end of Reichenbach.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear John

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty boring, hey-ho.

_Dear John,_

_This is terribly poor form of me – not to mention incredibly cliché. I apologise; however it doesn’t seem I have much choice._

_I have to go away somewhere. I’m going to be gone for an awful long time and I’m not entirely convinced I’ll be coming back – that’s not to say I don’t hope to – since things rarely work out as planned._

_For instance, that back there didn’t work out as planned. I met Moriarty on the roof to get the better of him: I didn’t anticipate that he would threaten you and then kill himself before forcing me to jump. Because I did jump, I feel it’s important you know that. I did jump and when I told you I was a fraud while standing at the top of that roof I was lying, but by the time I made it to the pavement I wasn’t lying anymore. I am a fraud; because I’m not dead. I’m really not._

_I had planned to leave, to defeat Moriarty’s web, and then return to you. I had planned to allow you to believe I was dead and carry on with your life, but then just as I ducked behind a rubbish tuck and out of sight I saw your face. I saw your face and I thought to myself – you’ve already lied to him twice today. Well, three times: That’s enough._

_So I’m dropping this note to you to reassure you that I’m alive, but that for now I must play the part of the dead man in the hopes the three most important people in my life do not get type cast as such. Please know that I will do my best to return to you._

_And know ~~that I lo~~ that I was most grateful to have met you, if I don’t have the fortune of doing so again. Please know that you, ordinary little you, with your fake limp, your trembling hand, and your ferocious tenacity, made me so much better. You humanised me (if that’s even possible) and you made me realise the wonder in the ordinary. Because Mark Stamford really was a genius to suggest you as a flatmate, and you really were wonderful despite your bland jumpers and tea, and even Molly Hooper was quite something in the end._

_So, thank you._

_I think I best stop now. I have work to do, I suppose._

_Most sincerely, and truly, and honestly,_

_Sherlock Holmes._

***

John crumpled the note in his hand and pushed it back into his jacket pocket, where just a few moments ago a member of the homeless network had dropped it. He took a breath and closed his eyes, counting to ten slowly. He only got to seven before Mrs Hudson rolled up in a car and waved, smiling cheerfully as if she too were in on the news,

“Should we get going dear?”

John got into the car numbly and stared ahead all the way to the cemetery. When they arrived he asked for a moment alone and he spoke to the stone but really he spoke to the man stood behind the tree, because of course Sherlock wouldn’t be able to leave it alone. Of course he’d keep poking at the wound.

A small yellow post it was left on the ground near Sherlock Holmes’s grave stone that day and it wasn’t until late at night a man in a long black coat picked it up.

It read; _see you soon._


End file.
